esp@cenet (European Patent Office)

Collection of patents and patent applications worldwide through the European Patent Office (EPO) from 1836-present. You can search patents by origin country. Results can be downloaded as Adobe PDF files.

Google Advanced Patent Search makes it easy to search by categories such as assignee and date ranges.

The collection covers all granted patents and published patent applications from the USPTO (1790-present) and the EPO (1978-present). Try the basic search using the box below:

Some information on patents can be found in Lexis Nexis Academic Universe.

• Click the drop-down menu that says Search by content type above the red search box
• Then select Patent Search under the Legal category
• Search for the name of the company or patent number

Unites States Patent and Trademark Office

The USPTO houses full text for patents issued from 1976 to the present, searchable by many different categories. PDF images are available for all patents from 1790 to the present  but you must search by patent number and/or classification code for pre-1976 patents.

USPTO - Seven Step Strategy for a Preliminary U.S. Patent Search

A short guide for finding U.S. patents and patent applications using free online resources from USPTO and the European Patent Office.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

The WIPO provides the PATENTSCOPE database which covers 43 million patent documents including 2.5 million published international patent applications.  Documents can be downloaded as PDF, ZIP, or XML files.